The President’s health care initiative rests on a shelf with little talk in Congress about what’s next for the sweeping overhaul. At the same time, Mr. Obama has re-positioned the chessboard for his climate-control bill, suggesting at a town-hall meeting in Nashua on Tuesday that the legislation might need to… Read More

President Obama has given his speech, the Republicans have had their say and the punditry has opined and moved on. Investors should now consider what effect the State of the Union address and the president’s 2010 agenda might have on their portfolios. The speech’s… Read More

Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) released a new tablet computer, a 10-inch touchscreen device called the iPad that can deliver video, music and other online content. The arrival of the tablet has been, as is Apple’s wont, shrouded in secrecy. All that remains secret is whether the iPad will… Read More

One thing more than any other makes searching for value difficult these days: Loans. The best way to search for discounted companies is to set up a screen that looks at net asset value — assets minus liabilities. (To see… Read More

Next week the market will be focused on the nation’s banks, as the top U.S. financial institutions report their quarterly earnings. Their earnings parade actually started today, with a quarterly report from JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM),… Read More

The phrase “failure of imagination” has returned to the lexicon. It may turn out to be an appropriate catchphrase for the just-ended 2000s. It also applies to a few situations on Wall Street, where investors seem unable to wrap their arms around the idea that things won’t… Read More

Game on. The market is overreacting to an announcement today from GameStop (NYSE: GME) that it had trouble competing with Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) for holiday shoppers. Holiday sales were flat and GameStop lowered its guidance for the year, which ends in March, to between $2.23 to $2.27… Read More

It’s a fair question: Is Warren Buffett right? He isn’t always, of course. Buffett beats himself up each year in his annual letter to shareholders, spelling out exactly what he flubbed up. On Tuesday the famed Oracle of Omaha sent out a different kind… Read More

When 2008 ended with a -37.0% loss in the S&P 500, investors didn’t have a lot of good news to share. But 2009, happily, proved to be a comeback year, with the benchmark index… Read More

It’s coming. Or, I should say, “he’s” coming. Warren Buffett? No. Bill Gross? No. I am referring to Dick Clark. He’s on his way. He will be hosting, again, the annual ball-drop on Times Square… Read More